Thomas Schelling

Thomas C. Schelling, Professor of Economics, Emeritus, of Harvard University, is an eminent economic theorist whose work has focused on strategy and conflict. He received the "Nobel Prize in Economics" for 2005 together with Robert Aumann.

He has also been involved as an energy expert in the global warming debate, stressing that third world countries would be their main victim, and emphasizing the vast uncertainties about the costs and benefits of various preventive policies. He concluded that a program subsidizing energy-efficient technologies in developing countries, and more generally economic development,  would help them best.

In May 2004, he was one of the experts at the Copenhagen Consensus. His viewpoint on the issues that were discussed was clear before the conference commenced:

''Is 2 percent of GNP forever, to postpone the doubling of carbon in the atmosphere, a big number or a small one? That depends on what the comparison is. A better question--assuming we were prepared to spend 2 percent of GNP to reduce the damage from climate change--is whether we might find better uses for the money.''

He has also criticized the Kyoto Protocol as an inefficient bargaining structure, setting as an example the organization of NATO and WTO,  where a single countries set the rules and procedures, with a permanent organization to facilitate bargaining.

Schelling is a Former president (1991) of the American Economic Association.

According to Thierry Meyssan "Thomas C. Schelling was the theoretician of the military escalation during the Viêt-Nam war and he currently justifies the US decision not to sign the Kyoto Protocol and to ignore the UN Millennium Objectives." Meyssan also notes that "In 1948 he worked in Paris with the US ambassador Averel Harriman in the implementation of the Marshall Plan" and "In 1958, he was recruited by the Rand Corporation". Later, Meyssan notes: "Thomas C. Schelling came back to teach in Harvard although he continued to work as an advisor for the CIA" and "In 1990, after he retired as a university professor, Thomas C. Schelling joined the Albert Einstein Institution".


 * Former Chair, Albert Einstein Institution
 * Associate, Center for International Security Studies
 * Editorial Board, International Security

External Resources

 * Schelling, T. (1992), Some economics of global warming, American Economic Review, 82(1), 1-20.
 * Jeff Levine, On global warming, Schelling not so hot (op-ed), Phoenix Online, October 22, 1999.